What are the important events that happened on March 17? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
March 17: Facts & Myths About This Day
March 17 is the 76th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 289 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Monday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is March 4, 2025 – a Monday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 483,936 hours has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘heptacontahexagon’ day.
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Pisces is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Aquamarine is the modern birthstone for this month. Jade is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 337 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,469 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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March 17 Historical Events
- 1842 –The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is formed;
- 1860 –The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
- 1891 –SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.
- 1947 –First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.
- 1950 –Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name “Californium”.
- 1958 –The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
- 1959 –Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
- 1966 –Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Ship DSV submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
- 1973 –The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
- 1979 –The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.
Who were born on March 17?
- 1787 –Edmund Kean, English actor (d. 1833)
- 1820 –Jean Ingelow, English poet (d. 1897)
- 1880 –Lawrence Oates, English army officer and Antarctic explorer (d. 1912)
- 1894 –Paul Green, American writer (d. 1981)
- 1926 –Siegfried Lenz, German writer
- 1941 –Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)
- 1956 –Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist
- 1959 –Paul Black, American rock singer
- 1964 –Rob Lowe, American actor
- 1975 –Mason Jennings, American folksinger
Who died on March 17?
- 180 –Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (b. 121)
- 1040 –Harold Harefoot, King of England
- 1425 –Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (b. 1407)
- 1640 –Philip Massinger, English dramatist (b. 1583)
- 1715 –Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)
- 1893 –Jules Ferry, French statesman (b. 1832)
- 1994 –Mai Zetterling, Swedish actress and director (b. 1925)
- 1997 –Jermaine Stewart, American singer (b. 1957)
- 2002 –Pat Weaver, American broadcast executive (b. 1908)
- 2007 –Jim Cronin, British animal welfare activist (b. 1951)
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